


So We Sit

by GallifreyGod



Series: Saving You Saved Me [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, Heavy Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 22:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20460653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyGod/pseuds/GallifreyGod
Summary: So, she sits.She stares at the vanity across from her bed. Her eyes avoid her own reflection, but instead, they focus on the shiny police badge that's clipped to the mirror. She stares at how the dim light from her bedside lamp catches the reflection against it, right down the center of the tin; illuminating the engraved numbers on the bottom.'Hawkins Police Chief — 380'"You're not here," she whispers, refusing the detach her eyes from the glistening badge."I know," the familiar voice responds.So, they sit.





	So We Sit

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the song 'happiness does not wait' by ólafur arnalds

She sits on the edge of her bed for the millionth time. She had lost count how many times she had just sat there. Maybe it was six months after Bob, that was when she had stopped counting. 

But she's here again. Staring down at the bloodied bruises on her knuckles, she's here. When she blinks, those marks on her hands are only scars. No more scratches and scabs, they had all washed down the drain. 

Just scars now. Just like everything else she had been through, just scars. Small indentations above the bone, only a shade lighter than her normal skin. Not enough for others to notice, but she notices. 

She notices. 

People had begun to wonder why she looked dead behind the eyes. They had seen her walking around town, walking with no destination in mind. People talked. They speculated. None of them knew the truth. 

It was after Will, she thinks. After Will, when everything changed, that was when she had started to change. One week and she had seen only some of the horrors that the world had to offer. Some, not all. And then after Bob. Then, she thought she had seen it all. There couldn't be anything worse than that; nothing that her imagination could possibly conjure up to outdo the universe's cruelties. 

Wrong. _Again._

The death behind her dark brown eyes was a mystery to others. To them, none of it was true. A body being found mysteriously around the time her son was gone, and then her actual son being found alive. The nice man from Radio Shack who died in a tragic animal encounter. The police chief who died in a mysterious fire at the Starcourt Mall. 

It was all just images. Ugly images to hide the even uglier truth. 

So, she sits. She sits in the silence, in the dark, embracing truth. She was embracing the fact that she was now the Widow Byers. At least, that was what they called her now. Normal people and their normal lives during their normal commute, having the gall to say any sort of thing about her. About what she had lived. 

It's okay. 

It isn't, but it is. 

She's too tired to care. Too exhausted to pay any sort of attention to the normal people and the little boxes they live their lives in. 

Three funerals. Three years. All of them just as painful as the last. All of them different in their own detail. Will's was a casket with a cotton body. Bob's was his poor, mangled body that could barely be identified. Hopper's... well, Hopper's didn't even have a body in the chestnut box that they dropped in the ground. Just ash gathered from the fires, some of them hoping that even just a shred of what was left of him was in the ash they had gathered— so they could put him to peace. 

She sits. She stares at the vanity across from her bed. Her eyes avoid her own reflection, but instead, they focus on the shiny police badge that's clipped to the mirror. She stares at how the dim light from her bedside lamp catches the reflection against it, right down the center of the tin; illuminating the engraved numbers on the bottom. 

'Hawkins Police Chief — 380'

She feels a dip in the bed. It's nothing. It's her imagination. The kids are all in bed, sleeping as sound as they possibly could after what they have witnessed in their short lives. Their scars have faded too. Still visible, but only to the eye that was searching. The blood has run from their skin, slipping down the drain as the days passed, turning into weeks. Turning into months. 

The weight on the side of the bed next to her is still there, holding it down until she pays attention to it. It always does this. It always stays prominent until she stops fighting it off. Until she acknowledges it. 

"You're not here," she whispers, refusing the detach her eyes from the glistening badge. She sees him. She sees him everywhere. From the corner of her eye, from the reflection in the mirror. 

"I know," the familiar voice responds. She won't do it. She won't turn her head. She won't indulge in just another thing that made her 'Crazy Joyce Byers'. Because if she does, she cannot trust herself. She cannot guarantee that she'll ever be able to look away. 

But the more she refuses, the more often he comes. He waits. He waits until he gets the message that she refuses to turn and look into his eyes. 

So, they sit. 

"You are all in my head," she whispers again, feeling the familiar sting of tears in her eyes. The pressure builds, but the tears feel too thick to drop. She wants to close them, but she fears that if she does, he will leave. She won't look at him, but she won't let him disappear either. It's not fair. It isn't fair because every single time he shows back up just leave again, it hurts all the same. 

"I know," 

His voice still sounds gruff and deep. Safe. His voice always made her feel safe. Even when he was shouting in anger or mocking her. That goddamn deep vibrato felt like a blanket draping over her body. 

"You... you are a figment of my imagination," she says as she forces herself to inhale. To breathe. She's had trouble doing that lately. But she also struggles with holding her breath. She's trying. To breathe, that is. In and out. It couldn't be simpler. 

Things aren't simple anymore. Nothing is. 

"I know," he repeats for the third time. 

She wants to reach out and touch him. She could if she wanted to; she knows that. But he isn't real. He will fade and disintegrate the moment her fingertips graze his chest. Like smoke, he'll float away. 

Everything she loves has floated away eventually. On some occasions, she was lucky enough to pull it back down before it was gone for good. The other times, she wasn't as lucky. In fact, none of this felt lucky. The tragic things that shouldn't happen that she somehow manages to avert is not a stroke of luck. It's a cruel trick. A torturous game that the universe is playing with her. Rarely, she wins. 

"You can look at me," his voice interrupts the silence. This time, she can't stop herself from squeezing her eyes shut. If she looks, she loses. That's part of the game. If she falls for the tricks, there is a punishment. She hates the universe. 

Looking at him has consequences. 

"No,"

"Joyce—"

"I said no!" she shouts, her chest rising and falling as she tries to catch her breath. He's still there when she opens her eyes, just in range of her peripheral vision. "You..." she starts, shaking her head with an incredulous laugh. "You are a hallucination."

"I know," his simple replies are beginning to frustrate her. He knows. For God's sake, he knows everything. He always did. He had seen enough, he outta know a lot. He had seen the foreign ground of Vietnam. He had seen the police precincts of New York City. He had seen the opaque plastic tubing of a child-sized oxygen mask. He had seen the cracks and crevices that peeked into another dimension. 

Goddamnit, he'd seen enough. He knew enough. 

"You're going to find me soon," he whispers. Still refusing to look, from the corner of her eye she can see his hand reaching for hers. She watches his callous skin touch hers, yet she feels nothing. Not a tickle, not a brush, absolutely no indication that he is anything other than her deteriorating mind putting on a show for her. 

"I know," it was her turn to say. "I spoke with Murray. We're leaving for Russia soon..." she stops, wondering if there was ever a time in her life where she expected to say those words. "And if you aren't there, I will reach into the pits of hell, pull you out, and kill you all over again." 

He laughs. She hates herself for it but he laughs. God damn, it's so good to hear his laugh. She already knows the shape of a smile he would be wearing. That he _is_ wearing. The glimmer of nostalgia in his eyes as he chuckles. She knows. He knows. 

"You always were a fiery one, Horowitz." 

Although she can not feel his hand, she sees from the corner that it has left her own. 

Would one look hurt? Would it create just another rift in the universe? Just... just one glance at those blue eyes that she missed so much. Didn't the universe owe her at least that? A single glance?

"I'll see you soon," he whispers. 

"No, don't go!" she cries, whipping her head around to face him. Within a sliver of a second, he's gone. Only a small, indistinguishable glance at his face before he turns to vapor. A flicker. The weight on the bed is gone, and so is he.

So, she sits. 

She sits and she cries. Sobs so violently yet so quietly that her throat begins to burn. Her lungs feel ablaze as she curses at the world— earning no response. Just crickets chirping into the night. 

"I promise... I'm coming." she breathes it into the air, hoping that somehow, someway, her words would travel with the wind and find their way to him. "Just... hold on."

But in the meantime, she sits.

She sits alone. 


End file.
